Prepper's Pantry: Ginger

Unlike many discovered plants, ginger seems to have been intentionally cultivated around 5,000 years ago. In this case, it wasn't selectively bred to improve certain natural characteristics like garlic was; instead, the hybrid resulted in a serendipitous combination of features from intentionally crossbreeding plants that didn't display those characteristics. Basically, everything that makes ginger, ginger seems to be a result of luck, not design.

While many people are familiar with the use of ginger in cooking, primarily Indian and Asian cuisine, fewer seem to be aware of its potential health benefits, though most of these have not been either proven or accepted by Western medicine. Ginger has been used in Chinese folk medicine for at least 2,500 years, and writings by Confucius and his followers claim that the philosopher ate ginger with every meal. Ginger is reported to aid in digestion, relieve nausea and upset stomach, help reduce intestinal gas, reduce pain and inflammation, lower cholesterol, and more.

In addition to being available fresh at most grocery stores, ginger is also available powdered for cooking, in supplements, pickled, chunked and dried, as well as candied for snacking.

Two varieties of ginger in China

One of the easier ginger-based items to make is a simple syrup for use as-is, in cocktails, or to combine with seltzer for a home-made ginger beer.

Ginger Simple Syrup

• Ginger (dried or fresh)
• Sugar
• Water

1. If using fresh ginger, peel, slice, and put in a pot with an equal amount of water.
2. If using dried ginger, dice and allow it to soak in an equal amount of water for several hours.
3. Add an equal amount of sugar to the water (or more, if a sweeter result is preferred) and bring to a boil, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.
4. Reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
5. Allow to cool and pour into a sealable container, such as a canning jar.
6. Steep for as little as 1 hour or as long as several days for a stronger ginger flavor.
7. Strain out the ginger solids and pour the liquid into a sterilized sealable container.
8. Refrigerate and enjoy.

Dried Ginger Chunks

That's merely one of the many, many uses for ginger.. and I'm not even talking about redheads.